Army suicides highest in 26 years!

Army suicides highest in 26 years!

news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON - Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 16-8-2007 by UM_Gazz]

99 Suicides in 2006? OMG. ...Let my people go!

I don't know if this is as shocking to everyone else as it was to me. Volunteer service huh?

AAC

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Maby a sociologist could fill us in on what was happening twenty six years ago that made the suicide rate so high then.

1981? We were in the midst of one of the worst recessions we have had in recent memory and Ronald Reagan had just been elected president; punk was king and John Lennon was dead, and the morale in the military was probably at its lowest during the post Vietnam era. That is what I recall anyway.

Damn! Was all that really 26 years ago? I was 26 then... AWK !!! I am getting old.

No in all seriousness.... this is so sad. Our so called leaders don't respect our military despite their rhetoric and the stress they are putting on our men and women is taking its toll as a result... AND still those buggers (and that is not to say anything bad about buggers) are banging the war drum over Iran.

Mark my word, bush minor and cheney the dick's policies are crippling our military and after those two are long gone, and we have pulled out of the mid east and Iraq, it (the military) will still be paying the price for their mindless recklessness.

They have done our country no good service those two and deserve impeachment, removal from office and being turned over to the war crimes tribunal.




[edit on 16-8-2007 by grover]

I happen to know a 19 year old young mother that became a widow when her marine husband hung himself, leaving her with a two week old baby.

Yes, she saw no signs of anything been wrong after he came from Iraq and after the birth of their son he seemed happy.

A week before going back to Iraq he killed himself in their bedroom by hanging.

No notes, no words no nothing.

He was from a family of military men and she is the daughter of a ret Marine.

Very, very sad.

This IS tragic, but it's nothing new.
There are records from official Army documents dating back to the Revolutionary War, concerning suicides amongst the troops. There are some excellent records by Napoleon's officers as well, detailing the frequency of these acts.
The incidents almost always seem to increase on a graph corresponding to the duration of the war in question and also as to whether a victory is imminent or not.
War kills people, in one way or another.

I did not work out how the number of the army compare to the nation as a whole, but here are the stats. for the country.

All suicides


Number of deaths: 30,622


Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.8 sorce

there is a lot of information on the page if any one wants to look at it.

Actually its even worse.... the accounts I have heard and read have 101 actual suicides, but even worse, 900 attempted ones... most done after they got home.

now that I think about it wasn't world war II about 26 years ago? Probably because war sucks.

Originally posted by blowfishdl
now that I think about it wasn't world war II about 26 years ago? Probably because war sucks.

2007 minus 26 equals 1981.

OK, quick history lesson. World War Two ended in 1945.

The Korean War ended in 1953

Vietnam ended in 1975 (yes, I know. American pull out was in 1973).

The only thing that ended was that ass-hat Jimmy Carter's term in office, thankfully! War might suck, but he sucked even more than that!

I'm getting a bad feeling about all of this. A mother just told me today that her son has just been deployed to Baghdad, for 18 months. Again. He has already served in Iraq.
This time when she told me, the look on her face was shock, as if it can't be happening again. It was almost as if she had heard about a death sentence.

I have been contributing to packages she has been sending to soldiers at the place where her son served the first time. I asked her what I could send now. It was her reply that made me think of this thread. She said that she cannot send anything, nor have electronic communication with her son this time, as such types of communication would let the insurgents know where the soldiers are stationed and how many are stationed at locations. ??

So here are soldiers used to these electronic communications and packages, and now they won't get anything. This situation should make more depressed soldiers.

From the article:

• Of the 99 suicides, 30 were soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time of their deaths, 27 of them in Iraq.

• 69 were committed by troops who were not deployed in either war, though there were no figures immediately available on whether they had previously deployed.

This part is weird. Why no distinction about those not currently deployed?
Two Thirds were not participating in either current theater.
Filling in that missing data would seem important to me.

Originally posted by desert
So here are soldiers used to these electronic communications and packages, and now they won't get anything. This situation should make more depressed soldiers.

Well, it sucks, but it could be worse, I always think.

I was in a location that was "blacked out" with no comm whatsoever. No phones, email, letters, nothing. We always found a way around it!

troops through out the years allways wait for that letter from home - to be bared from such is the worst disaster you can imagine.